


Get Your Kicks (on Route 66)

by michi_thekiller



Series: fever all through the night [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - 1960s, Alternate Universe - Greasers, Alternate Universe - High School, Freeform, Greaser Sherlock, Greasers, Historical References, M/M, POV John Watson, Teenlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-04-27 09:17:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5042662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michi_thekiller/pseuds/michi_thekiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John, on the road. </p><p> </p><p>An early 1960's greaserlock AU where Sherlock and John road trip across America. Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/785061">You Give Me Fever.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kansas

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter was first published in the print copy of You Give Me Fever.
> 
> oh yeah, and they're American, in case you missed that the first time around!

Sherlock thinks that they should just bomb middle America, because, he says, he cannot think of a more useless piece of land.

“The farmers seem to find some use for it,” says John.

“Yes,” says Sherlock, and he says,  “ _Corn,_ ” with the most scorn that John has ever heard anyone muster up for a vegetable.

Sherlock has been bored of Kansas since Missouri, and he is sick of corn - or so John gathers, as these have been the main sources of complaint for the past hour or so. John likes Kansas. It reminds him of a home that he had, once. The farmlands roll on forever in waves of green and gold, the air rich with the smell of cornfields and sorghum in the sun. At the next place they stop John buys a placard that declares, “There’s No Place Like Home!” bordered with sunny-yellow stalks of corn.

In Missouri there had been Graham Cave, a wide sandstone arch 100 meters into the hillside; the haunted Lemp Mansion (deemed not all that haunted by Sherlock); and the Patee House, one of the stops of the Pony Express. In the gift shop, John had picked up a figurine of a small man in a cowboy outfit riding a small horse.

John puts the tiny Pony Express rider on the dashboard, next to his growing collection of souvenirs. Sherlock glares at it as if this is a personal affront, as if the tiny horse might make tiny droppings in his precious car. John surreptitiously moves it behind his miniature catsup bottle (from their visit to The World’s Largest Catsup Bottle; Collinsville, Illinois).

“Where are we now?” John asks.

“We’re in Kansas,” Sherlock says, absolutely disgusted.  “Five hours ago we were in Kansas. And we are still in Kansas. We’re never leaving Kansas. I hate this country. It’s a nightmare. Eternal Kansas.”

Sherlock then goes on to complain about the lack of anything interesting in the scenery, and says he is shocked that the road isn’t littered with the corpses of citizens who have dropped dead of sheer ennui, or even a good car crash caused by someone falling asleep at the wheel, what he wouldn’t give for a good car crash, John.

“It’s not all bad,” John says, cheerily. “Look, there are cows.”  

Which, of course, is a statement so infuriating that John amuses himself by enthusiastically pointing out cows every time he sees them, each time acting like someone who’s never seen a cow before (“Oh my gosh! Is that a cow? I can’t believe it! Did you see that?”), while Sherlock groans and whines about it and all in all, the time passes rather pleasantly.  

 

* * *

 

 

They had decided to head west, the way that dreamers do. There’d been a little argument at first about where to go, all the cities John had never seen yet- Los Angeles and Boston and New York and London.

“We can’t exactly drive to London on your spring break,” Sherlock said.

“I suppose not,” John had agreed.

They had spread out the map on the table, looking at the tiny capillaries of blue and red and green and black, the beige shapes of states, the wide, light blue of ocean. John had never traveled farther than the neighboring farm until he was eleven, when Dad left. After that they traveled a lot - first to his aunt’s and then (when his mother got sick of fighting with his uncle) to his grandmother’s, staying in motels and sometimes sleeping in the car in the times in between. He and Harry had loved it; every day an adventure, every night a new bed, or the car parked in the unknown quiet of someplace new.

When John looked at the map with Sherlock he could see possibility unfurled before them. He could close his eyes and point his finger at any destination, and they would be able to go.

 

This one thing they both understood: Anywhere But Here.

 

* * *

 

 

A giant ball of twine sits in the middle of town in Cawker City, surrounded by banners of red, white, and blue. John reckons it is the size of a barn. A banner declares it to be the World’s Largest Ball of Twine. For a city whose population peaks at 500 on a good day, this is a big deal. 

“It’s larger than a barn,” Sherlock says. He leans in to inspect it. “Sisal twine. Made from the fibrous agave plant; _Agave sisalana,_ native to southern Mexico, grown best in tropic or sub tropic areas. Commonly used for keeping bales of hay together.”  

Local farmer Frank Stoeber began slowly knotting his way into fame in 1953. In just four years, the ball of twine  weighed 5,000 pounds, stood 8 feet high, and had 1,175,180 feet of twine on it.

He’d loaded it onto a parade float for the Centennial celebration, rolled it into town, and then left it there after the parade ended (as it was growing too big for his barn, Sherlock says). Now it towers over them, at least 11 feet in diameter, and full of twine (about 1,600,000 feet of it, Sherlock guesses).

It’s surrounded by a handful of people who have come around to whistle at it, saying “Wowee,” and clucking their tongues, turning to each other and saying, “Now ain’t that somethin’?”  

John snaps a picture with his new Polaroid camera. It had cost him $69.95 - a year’s worth of scrimping and saving $1.19 a week, of completely forgoing comic books and milkshakes and trips to the penny arcade. It is his pride and joy. Sherlock, who has suddenly found himself the main muse of a budding young photographer, absolutely hates it.  

John makes Sherlock stand next to the twine ball for a picture. Sherlock makes a face like one would expect Sherlock Holmes to make when standing next to an enormous ball of twine.

John then stops a man so that he and Sherlock can get their picture taken together. The two of them crowd together to see the developing picture: first the outline of their heads, close together, then John’s wide smile, their shoulders just barely touching, the both of them squinting awkwardly in the sun, Sherlock not-not-smiling. Unseen: Sherlock’s hand, lightly resting on the small of John’s back.

John tucks the picture away into his journal for safekeeping. Nearby, two kids are manning a stand that is already taking advantage of the gullibility of tourists.

“What a trap. What kind of idiot pays 25 cents for a penny’s worth of twine?” Sherlock asks rhetorically.  

“Hey, look!” John says. “Different-sized Miniature Replicas of the World’s Largest Ball of Twine!”

John spends the rest of their time in Cawker City convincing Sherlock that _his_ twine is special.

 

* * *

 

 

John had been the one to choose California as their destination. The reason for his choice, however, was unbeknownst to Sherlock, although most things did not stay unbeknownst to Sherlock for long.

John had arrived home from school on a Thursday, at the same time the postman (Mr. Daley) arrived at the Watsons’ front gate. “Mail for you, Johnny my boy,” Mr. Daley said, with a large smile, and John didn’t need Sherlock to deduce what it was, judging from the size of the envelope.

The return address read:

 

 

 **Office of Undergraduate Admission**  
Stanford University  
Montag Hall  
355 Galvez Street  
Stanford, CA 94305

 

John had applied to Stanford on a whim and a wish, not liking his chances. He had never expected to be holding the letter that ran: _“Dear Mr. Watson, we are very pleased to inform you…”_

At first he’d been elated. He may have whooped. He might have hollered. He would, under extreme pressure, perhaps admit that there may have possibly been something akin to dancing involved.

California. Land of sun and beaches lined with palm trees, the white letters of HOLLYWOOD standing proud over green hills. The place where dreams came true. He knew nothing about California other than what he’d seen on TV, where the sunlight was so bright it turned stretches of sand into glowing swathes of white. It had looked just like paradise to a young John Watson, who, at 8 years old, knew little outside of a farmhouse, an annoying little sister, a distracted mother, and a father who smelled of whiskey and had a fondness for the belt.

California. All the way across the country. Away from home, away from his mother and his sister, away from Sherlock. 2,700 miles between here and there.

He would have to tell Sherlock as soon as possible. When the right moment came, he would do it. It was all right, then, to wait for the right moment.

 

* * *

 

 

The World’s Largest Hand Dug Well is located in Greenburg, Kansas. It extends 109 feet into the ground and measures 32 feet in diameter. Built in 1887, they call it a “masterpiece of pioneer engineering.” It was built entirely by farmers, cowboys, and drifters. They would start work at sunrise, banded together in crews of 12 to 15 men, carving into the earth with shovels and picks, hauling dirt with half barrels, systems of pulleys and ropes. At sundown they collected their pay, anywhere from fifty cents to a dollar a day.

It is named, accurately enough, “The Big Well.”

 **THE BIG WELL** , reads the letters arching over the gate. Over the entrance, painted green letters reiterate “THE BIG WELL” - just in case anyone missed it - with a giant arrow pointing down.

“Well,” says Sherlock drily, “At least we know what we’re getting ourselves into.” 

“Yes,” John quips, “well.”

John follows Sherlock down the staircases, one flight after another, deeper and deeper into the earth. A cool draft is blowing as if the wind is following behind them; a whistle in a well. The temperature in here is about ten degrees cooler than outside. John had always thought it would be hot underground; a childhood misconception gleaned from his Aunt Aggie, who frequently terrified both John and Harry with tales of the eternal fires of Hell burning beneath their feet.

Sherlock puts a hand on cool stone and commits it to memory; the stone used for the well casing was brought in from the Medicine River, 12 miles south from here. John thinks about Sherlock’s hand on his heated skin in the dark, committing John to memory. Sherlock’s skin looks yellow in the light of the lamps mounted on the wall, his cheekbones thrown into sharp relief. He shouldn’t look good, but he does, and that’s Sherlock for you.

Sherlock catches him looking and smiles. John thinks about Greek myths and something about six pomegranate seeds. Aunt Aggie would say it was the apple, but in the end, you were cast out of the garden all the same.  

He follows Sherlock all the way down to the bottom.

The Big Well is also home to the Space Wanderer, the largest pallasite found to date - weighing in at 1000 pounds. Discovered in 1949, it is a piece of meteorite that had fallen to earth and embedded itself in the field of a local farm, as meteorites tend to do.

John, a Buck Rogers fan, tries to engage Sherlock in a conversation about what it must be like to be a Space Wanderer, to be hurtling through the vastness of space at hundreds of miles an hour and then to suddenly break off from everything you’ve ever known and fall, all alone, down to a strange planet. Sherlock says that firstly, space is full of a whole lot of nothing and is therefore completely irrelevant, and that secondly, the Space Wanderer is a rock, and rocks don’t much care about loneliness or separation or anything at all, but he poses for a picture with the giant space-rock with minimal grumbling, so John eventually forgives him his lack of imagination.

In the gift shop, John buys a tiny porcelain boot that says ‘Kansas’ on the side.  

 

* * *

 

 

The sun is starting to set when they pull over in the middle of nowhere.

“It’s actually the middle of Kansas. That’s a specific kind of nowhere,” Sherlock corrects him, right before he gets out of the car.

By the time John says, “Wait, where are you--” Sherlock has already shut the door behind him, and John has no choice but to follow.

Sherlock walks straight into the cornfield. In the late summer and fall it would be a forest of tall green stalks, same as John was used to, but this early on in the year the sweet corn is no higher than three feet. It rustles as Sherlock wades through, a man with intent.  

“Sherlock?”

“Hurry up! I want to show you something!”

The earth is soft and springy underneath John’s feet; the smell in the air of hot green things growing.

Sherlock stops in the middle of the field, a dark outline against the sky, black leather jacket and hair aglow with the orange light of the dying sun behind him.

“What did you want to show me?” John asks when he catches up to him. “Well, other than the fact that you’re the best looking scarecrow for miles around.”

“I found a use for corn,” says Sherlock, and before John can really say that the corn isn’t really around just yet, Sherlock is kissing him, the way that he does, all hot and insistent, and before John can really kiss back, the way that he likes to, Sherlock is pushing him backwards and John loses his balance and they both end up tumbling down into the dirt.

John lands on his bottom with a thud, calls Sherlock a jerk, rolls them over in the same breath; Sherlock is laughing, not caring about the dirt on his precious jacket, rubbing onto the seat of his jeans. His hands are on John, palms open and fingers squeezing, rubbing hot on his shoulders, his spine, the small of his back, burning through the thin fabric of John’s plaid shirt.

“Jerk,” John says again. Sherlock smiles up at him, that smile that always made John’s gut clench, long before he knew what the feeling meant.  Sherlock says, “Shut up so I can kiss you,” and John refuses, because they’re both in the mud (dirt, corrects Sherlock) and the next motel has got to be miles and miles away yet, and they’re still out in the open, and Sherlock is a madman, and then Sherlock kisses him anyway, cutting him off mid-word. It’s a stolen tactic - John had discovered this first, when Sherlock was being particularly insufferable one day, bored out of his skull and reciting different iterations of chemical compounds in dangerous combinations, and John had kissed him to stop him thinking.

It’s wholly unfair when his own moves are used against him, but he’s not complaining.

They roll over a few more times for good measure, tussling in the dirt.

John can feel his own heart beating when Sherlock kisses him. His heart thrills up in his chest, galloping like he’s just run an 8 minute mile. Sherlock’s lips are dry but his tongue is hot and wet. John feels like he could run forever.

Through the stalks of corn, this far from the road, they are completely hidden from view. With only the eyes of God upon them, Sherlock presses John down into the dirt. The sky is orange and purple and red above them, burning.

John closes his eyes.

Sherlock’s kisses are wet and hot, a heat that John thinks would consume him if he let it. It’s starting already, the feeling warm and low in his belly like coals glowing bright with breath. Girls don’t kiss like this, John’s sure. At least none that he’s ever known. Not like this, with Sherlock’s hands in his hair and his lean body heavy on top of him, flat chest against his own and a growing erection heating his thigh.

John pushes back into it; meets Sherlock with lips and tongue open, warm and yielding. His body yields like the spring earth.

There could come a time, one day, when they will no longer kiss like this. There may come a time Sherlock might not want to kiss him like this.

The thought makes him desperate, like a drowning man grappling for the pier. His hands grab for whatever he can reach; his hands sliding up Sherlock’s chest, on Sherlock’s shoulders, fingers curling on the back of Sherlock’s neck, reaching down between them to palm the hardness pressing against him, making himself feel hot and making Sherlock curse suddenly in his ear.

John smirks, proud of himself; lets his palm rub slowly, fingers tracing and teasing - feeling the shape and heat of it. Listens to Sherlock’s panting breath; his name “John, _John,_ ” kissed against the corner of his mouth, his jaw, his ear.

Sherlock lets it go on for as long as he can stand it, until he can’t stand it no more, and he grabs John’s hands by the wrists and pins them above his head, rocking into him. John opens his mouth for Sherlock’s tongue, hot and wet and alive. He likes the way Sherlock pushes it in deep and the way it moves; likes the way that Sherlock moves against him.

Moves back against Sherlock, out of instinct and animal hunger. He’s a teenager and this is sex, this is everything, touching and kissing and friction until he feels like he wants to crawl out of his skin with wanting.

Sherlock rubbing against him down in the dirt. The two of them pressed together, rocking together, locked together.

John comes in his trousers, hot and easy, groaning against Sherlock’s mouth. Thinks about the other times he’s come in his pants, just like this, with Sherlock’s voice in his ear whispering obscenity or Sherlock’s mouth on his or Sherlock’s long fingers lightly tracing the crease of his thigh, shudders against the second wave of pleasure that ripples through him. He feels Sherlock keep rocking and then gasp and moan and go still. His chest feels filled with the light of the sun; he’s absorbed the warmth of the earth into him.

Dusk has settled upon the cornfield, the sky deepening in bands of colors. They’ve missed the sunset entirely. John doesn’t know when the light fades and the stars flicker into being.

“Oof. Ger’off,” John mumbles, shoving at Sherlock soon as he has his hands back again.  

 They lie in the field together, the air rising with the sound of crickets and their own panting breath. Looking up at the stars, Sherlock says it’s beautiful.

John, surprised, remembering an old argument about the Earth and whether it revolved around the sun or vice versa - “I thought you didn’t care about -”

Sherlock looks at him and says, “Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it.”

John smiles, pulls him in for another kiss, this one softer. Feels Sherlock’s skin warm, his shirt slightly damp with sweat.

From here, right here, maybe nowhere don’t look so bad.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Kansas City (originally K.C. Lovin) by Lieber and Stoller - Little Willie Littlefield (1952) ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih4CVP7S08k)
> 
> _I'm goin to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come....they gotta crazy way of lovin there and I'm gonna get me some_


	2. rebel without a cause

John was 11 years old when he first laid eyes on James Dean. He loved going to the movie theater even if he couldn't afford the pictures; didn't get much pocket change because Momma always said they just didn't have the money to spare, not with the car acting up in the winter and the heating bill so high, and how he and Harry kept growing and needing clothes all the time and don’t forget new shoes besides.  Dad was always yelling about the _goddamn bills_ and how hard it was for an honest man to make a living, what with the _goddamn family_ to support. One time he had a fit so bad that he pitched a vase and although it didn’t break it ended up putting a dent in the drywall. Momma covered it up with a painting of daisies. Some nights when John and Harry lay in bed, they could hear her crying, muffled, through the cracks in the walls.

Mr. Benson, who was on John's paper route, managed the local theater and slipped him an extra dime, sometimes, in exchange for errands and small favors: sweeping up the theater lobby, or sorting new popcorn bags, or wiping down the framed glass of the pictures that were **COMING SOON**. And if John was really lucky then sometimes he got in to watch the movies for free, even the ones that were deemed inappropriate for audiences younger than 13.

John loved the movies. The plush red velvet seats, the red carpet, the curtains - they made you feel like you were really somebody. And then, when the lights went off, for 90 minutes to two hours, sitting there in all that darkness, you could be anybody. Everyone was so much bigger on the silver screen, so much more beautiful, their lives so much more terrifying and terrible.

He watched _Dial M for Murder_ and _Rear Window_ from the back row, clutching a nickel bag of popcorn. He saw _To Catch a Thief_ and _The Ladykillers._ He enjoyed _Blackboard Jungle_ and _Lady and the Tramp_. Then, in October of 1955, he saw _Rebel Without a Cause_.

James Dean, in his red jacket with the popped collar, all cool disillusion with his suburban life. Angry and unsatisfied, brimming with unspoken energy. And despite his rough-and-tumble exterior, inside Jim Stark was desperately lonely, searching for something greater, with a deep capacity for love.

Every time he was on screen, there was a thumping in John’s heart he had never been aware of before. His skin was prickling all over while he sat there in the dark. When Jim Stark raced Buzz Gunderson to the edge of Millerton Bluff in a chickie run, John’s stomach flipped as if he were the one about to go over the cliff instead.

John had never seen someone so _cool_ in his entire life.  

His heart was still pounding after the lights went back on, his breathing just a little bit faster. The daylight was especially bright when he stepped outside. Oh _gosh_ he just had to see that movie again.

 

John watched _Rebel Without a Cause_ five more times that autumn, until it was pulled from the theater and replaced with _Guys and Dolls_ (which John thought was only all right, despite the fact that he liked both Sinatra and Brando).

Every time he watched _Rebel_ he felt a flutter in his tummy that he didn’t understand. He wouldn’t understand for a while yet. Not until Sherlock Holmes pressed him against the lockers one hazy afternoon in late September, years later. Then suddenly, everything was illuminated.    

The twist deep down in the core of John’s body when Sherlock stared at him, that undeniable pull inside like someone tugging on sinew, the hot, _hot_ heat that flooded his blood and made his blood flood his face - it all made sense, then, with Sherlock’s chest against his and the curl of Sherlock’s fingers on his shoulders, burning, _searing_ John through the thin fabric of his T-shirt, and Sherlock’s tongue slipping into his mouth and all those damn butterflies burst through their chrysalises and just had themselves a _wild_ party inside John’s stomach.  

John had spent his whole life up until that moment like a match unaware of its own purpose. Now he was lit, and the knowledge would consume him.

James Dean, all those years ago, this feeling, and now Sherlock Holmes.

He’d followed Sherlock into an empty classroom that afternoon, sat down on a desk and let Sherlock kiss him breathless. They’d propped a chair against the door to prevent anyone from coming in unannounced, although by that hour the only person left at school was probably the janitor, maybe the principal.

In the darkness of the night, in the privacy of his bed, the moments replayed themselves in full-on technicolor, vivid and bright.  The warmth of the square of sun that fell upon them, the dust motes that swirled lazily in the light. The hard surface of the desk against his thighs, while Sherlock cradled his face in both of his hands and kissed him. The press of Sherlock’s mouth against his. Feeling the strange, intimate wetness of another person’s mouth for the first time. Sherlock saying against his lips, “open your mouth a bit more,” his breath hot, so close, and John obliging, dizzy with newfound knowledge, burning up.

And underneath the covers John’s hand moved and wrapped around himself, unable to keep from touching himself although he knew that it was sinful and wrong. Although they’d taught him in Sunday school that God was always watching, although Momma had always told him to “be a good boy, John,”  he thought of the heat of Sherlock’s hands on his thighs spreading them open, how Sherlock’s fingers gently but insistently gripped his flesh, the press of Sherlock’s leg right _there_ , right in the center of his body, rubbing against him just slightly whenever Sherlock moved, that electric jolt of pleasure that sang through his body like a note through a string, thought of kissing Sherlock, rubbed his thumb over the sensitive head of his own cock and felt the wetness of his own excitement, thought of kissing James Dean, shivered hard, stroked himself with a fresh spurt of his own wetness, and tumbled over the edge, belly swooping, and in that moment he was flying,  in sharp, hot pulses of white all over his own hand, getting a little on his stomach.    

The shame and the guilt came crashing down on him only seconds afterwards, as he lay panting in the dark, confronted with the warm, wet mess of his own sin all over his hand. But it would not stop him from repeating the experience the next night, nor from nodding yes when Sherlock asked him, the next day, whether he wanted a ride home from school.

 

Something terrifying had awakened in John, something dangerous and untameable. But he could not go back to that static, unlit life.

And so he tugged his destruction closer.

 

* * *

 

 

In the motel rooms there are always two beds.

 

One is a sex bed, the other one for sleeping in, Sherlock explains, for true efficiency. They end up using both for both purposes, not caring.

 

* * *

 

 

But the first night they stopped at a motel John felt like something between a newlywed and a man on death row. They’d never been alone before, no listening for the sound of the key in the lock, no turning up the music so that no one downstairs would hear. No tensing at the sound of a car pulling into the driveway, parents coming home.

The thought of an empty bed and a locked door felt full of possibility.

John was certain that anyone who cast an eyeball at him could see the glow in his cheeks and the absolute perversion in his mind. His sin was written all over his face. The evidence of his crimes was tattooed all over his skin, everywhere he’d been kissed.

The clerk behind the desk had to know. He was a medium sort of man, medium height and build, a middle-ranged voice; decent-looking with neat, clean hair and fingernails. He probably had a medium sort of wife at home, two kids and a dog, went to church on Sundays. He would take one look at the two of them and know about all the things that they wanted to do to each other, just how John liked to be touched, and wrecked, and the mess they would both make all over the sheets.  Horrified, he’d cast them both out in sin.

John could barely even meet his eyes. When he looked, a moment later, he saw that the clerk’s eyes and hair were the same medium sort of brown.

“Jiss put it under Sheridan Hope,” Sherlock drawled, trying out a Midwestern twang. “And this here’s mah colleague, Ormond Sacker.”

It was fitting him very badly.

John nodded along, very seriously. He tried not to notice the cross hung above the door, with Jesus’s wooden face, small and sorrowful.

Sherlock handed over the money for the night - $8.50 in cash.  There was a moment where John heard the clerk say, very stiffly, “I’m sorry, Sir, but we’re all booked up for the night.” There was the moment where John heard the clerk say something much worse, damnation and hellfire and that word - _sodomite_ \- and awfuler things than that, even.  

But all the clerk actually said was, “Here’s your key, Sir.”

John could barely keep from grinning the entire walk to their room, feeling like they’d just robbed a bank and he was driving the getaway car, with the Mexican border in sight.

 

He was a criminal; they were certainly criminals both. The things they did that night were illegal in Oklahoma and Kansas and 47 other states besides. They committed unspeakable acts together, made crime scenes of each other. A whole world passed by outside of their locked door, ordinary and unknowing.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They stop for dinner in Baxter Springs, Kansas. They walk into the restaurant with both of them still covered in dirt with little clouds of dust nearly puffing off of them. Sherlock introduces them to an uncaring waitress as Al and Lucky, a pair of good boys “just passin’ through, not lookin’ for no trouble.”

His tough-guy Italian accent is a hair better than his Midwestern one. It’s a work in progress.

Back at the motel, afterwards, Sherlock has his hands all over John before the door is even fully closed, tugging at his clothes and ordering him to strip, saying that he has to check him for ticks. He’s utterly disappointed with John’s lack of reaction when he pretends to find one at the base of his spine; John laughs, no stranger to walking through fields and forests. But they both yelp when they actually find one in Sherlock’s hair and John howls with laughter at Sherlock messing up his perfect hair with both hands scratching, cursing and yelling fit to beat the band even after he’s removed the goddamn bloodsucker - “Are there any more? Are you _sure_ it’s gone?! John, this is _serious!_ ” They fall into the shower together, John still giggling until Sherlock covers his mouth quiet first with his palm, unsuccessfully, and then with his mouth, successfully. They stay in the shower for over an hour, depleting the motel’s hot water tank, and John runs his hands through Sherlock’s wet hair and makes his curls fall in front of his eyes and Sherlock rubs the dirt and sweat off of John although he seems more interested in the rubbing than the actual washing. Straight to the bed after still wet and dripping and laughing and John does something he’d never do at home which is let all the water drip into the sheets and soak the bed with Sherlock pressed up naked against him and kissing his collarbone and the curve of his shoulder and his curls all wet and wild and messy and the last thing John thinks before he falls asleep is how they’ll probably be cold in the morning but for right now he’s warm.

 

 


	3. summer nights

For the past two summers John worked as an usher in the movie theater making $1.10 an hour, which was real decent, especially for someone still in school. If he worked really hard, sometimes he could make up to 30, even 40 dollars a week. Most of it went towards groceries when Momma forgot, or couldn’t make it to the store. Come November it would go to birthday and then Christmas presents for Harry. John knew that money was tight and that he needed to help out since he was the man of the house, but somehow the liquor cabinet was always stocked even when the fridge wasn’t and so he never told his mother exactly how much he got paid. She was a hard-working woman but she was full of sorrows. John saved compulsively, never knowing when those rainy days were coming. There would always be something that needed fixing, the money was never enough, and sorrows always hovered on the horizon.

 Sherlock had graduated school already, with no real prospects and a whole lot of money. He of course did what only the rich and disillusioned could afford to do, which was pretty much nothing. Nothing interested him; everything interested him. One week he would run through a variety of potential professions: privateer, pioneer, engineer, spy; researching each one voraciously. The next week he would want to do nothing other than tinker with his cars and tinker with John, respectively. He was frustrating and incorrigible, utterly spoiled, and mostly he made John laugh.

John liked the nights where he worked the last shift and it was up to him to close. Sherlock would visit him then and they could watch the pictures for free, although John reckoned they did more necking than watching, theater dark and empty save for them. The movie drowned out their soft kissing noises and occasional bursts of laughter, John’s gasps of quiet surprise, Sherlock’s voice low and wicked in his ear. They were supposed to have seen _The Magnificent Seven_ at least five times now and John still doesn’t quite know the plot.

 

Other nights John visited Sherlock at his home after his shift, his parents dead asleep and Sherlock usually working in the garage. Sherlock liked the company, even though he never said so. John liked to watch him work, and said so often.

 

Those August nights were like dark velvet on the skin; summer smell of sweet grass in the air.  It was late enough that the heat was just starting to lift, night breeze blowing like God’s green breath cooling off the earth.

Patsy Cline was singing on the radio, _“I fall to pieces...”_  Bug light glowing up in the corner, bright blue and hissing fluorescence. 

John hopped up on the wooden workbench against the wall of the garage. From there he watched Sherlock work, watched the visible flex of lean muscles underneath his thin white shirt. Sherlock was always good with his hands, at taking things apart and putting them back together. John liked the way that Sherlock looked when he was working, deep in concentration and lost in the machinations of the engine - but also he liked the way Sherlock looked when he was bent over, blue jeans pulling tight over the curve of his ass.

The Drifters crooning on the radio, _“Sweeter than wine, softer than the summer night...”_

Sherlock came over after a while, the way he usually did, when he was bored of pretending not to know that John was there. His white shirt was marked up with dark streaks of grease, and there was a smudge of it across on sharp cheekbone. His styled hair was tousled and his skin shone with the light sweat of exertion.   Something about the way he moved always set a fire going underneath John’s skin; all sinew and animal grace that John didn’t have and probably wouldn’t know what to do with if he did. The way he looked at John was something else - he had eyes the color of the Potomac in midwinter but his gaze was pure heat, so hot that John thought he might sizzle underneath it. Three years of being pinned underneath that look and it was a wonder he hadn’t completely gone to ash and dust.

Sherlock placed his hands on the workbench, on either side of John’s thighs. He was sizing John up as if there were something about him that he hadn’t seen before. John didn’t think that was possible. When Sherlock leaned in John could smell him; that scent of clean male sweat mixed with motor oil - unmistakably masculine.

John pushed back against him, thighs spreading; no longer anyone’s little homegrown ingenue.  

Sherlock caught the boldness in John’s gaze and served it back with a smile.

“Still in your uniform,” Sherlock remarked, and traced one finger delicately over John’s bared collarbone where his shirt was open, trailed it down to his chest. “Ought to change before it gets dirty.” His hands were stained with grease; grease turning his palms into roadmaps, turning his nails into dark half-moons, striking against the close-to-God cleanliness of John’s white shirt.

“Maybe I want you to dirty me up,” John said. Three buttons of his crisp shirt were undone, and, holding Sherlock’s gaze, he flicked open another one.  He liked the way that Sherlock’s breath caught, the way he looked at John like he shouldn’t have done that, which made John glad that he _had._

“Maybe?” asked Sherlock.

“Yeah,” breathed John, and licked his lips. Sherlock was looking at him with that hungry sort of look that made a moan wind itself up in the bottom of John’s throat.  “And maybe you should fuck me over the hood of your car until I come all over it. Maybe you should fuck me until I can’t talk and the only thing I can say is your name. ”

Sherlock sucked in a breath. He smeared one grease-stained thumb over John’s bottom lip.

“You have a filthy mouth,” he said. “Now where did you learn to talk like that?”

“Oh gosh, I just don’t know,” John said, all big baby blues and innocence. “Somebody must be setting a bad example.” He slid his hand down between them and cupped Sherlock through his jeans.

“Jesus,” Sherlock hissed.

“No, it really wasn’t him,” John said, and smiled. “Or at least one hopes not.”

“You’re absolutely wild,” Sherlock said. “C’mere,” and he twisted John’s clean, neatly-pressed shirt around his fist to pull him close and kiss him hot. John _felt_ wild, with Sherlock’s tongue in his mouth, desire like a fist twisting, tightening in his gut, the two of them kissing out in the open. He brought his hands up and pushed at Sherlock’s chest as if he were trying to get away, but not hard enough to actually dislodge him. Sherlock growled and gripped John’s back to hold him closer, keep him from going anywhere. He was kissing hard enough to bruise and John felt himself harden instantly in his trousers.

“You like it,” Sherlock said, when he pulled away, “when I try to keep you.”

John was panting, hands on Sherlock’s chest. “What gave me away?”

Sherlock ducked his head, licked a wet stripe over the exposed V of skin on John’s chest. One hand dropped between them, with his nails gently scratching over the shape of John’s erection, tracing it, lining it, paying attention to the head of it. John let out the moan that had been building up in the bottom of his throat, head dropping back, eyes closing. The overhead light burned bright through his eyelids, so that all he could see was white/glowing red. That was how he felt; burned through with light, filled with the color of heat.

Sherlock pushed his shirt aside and licked a lazy, slow circle around John’s nipple, and then opened his mouth, just _breathing_ over it, barely grazing it with his teeth. John felt like whining already and fought to keep it in. It was amazing how quickly Sherlock got him hot, as if he had been trained into erotic reflex over years of conditioning.

Sherlock switched over to the other nipple now, giving it the same slow, agonizing treatment, wet gentle circles and scrape of teeth that did nothing but tease. Sometimes he became so focused on minute areas of John’s body that he could spend up to an hour just playing with that one place, lost in his own explorations until John had no patience and far too much sensitivity. He tugged at Sherlock’s nape to get his attention. “Sherlock, c’mon.”  

“But I can’t fuck you over the workbench, John,” Sherlock said, and lapped at John’s nipple with just the tip of his tongue. “You said you wanted the hood of my car.” He was tickling his fingertips over the head of John’s erection again, feather-light pressure through his trousers.

“Oh, god, yes,” John said, pushing his hips forward so he could rub himself against Sherlock’s hand. Sherlock immediately took his hand away. Jerk.  

Sherlock stepped back entirely, leaving John with his shirt open and the night air cooling the wet spots on his skin. “All right, go on then. Strip for me, wild thing.”

John’s breath caught in his throat. His nerves were vibrating. He had stripped for Sherlock before, of course, but always in the privacy of his bedroom, never out in the open like this. It didn’t matter that it was near midnight, the house was dark and quiet, and they were in the relative safety of Sherlock’s garage.  This was a wide open space; the light from the garage spilling out into the indiscernible night. The night was all around him, and anything could have been out there; even the glittering stars seemed like twinkling eyes.

Sherlock walked over to his car - a flashy 1958 Ford T-Bird, red with silver trim - and unbuckled the hood prop, closing the hood with a slam. He turned around to look at John, expectantly, as if to call his bluff.  

John hopped off the bench. He strode over to Sherlock, stopping just before him. His hands went to his own shirt; his fingers were trembling and his fingers lingered over the next button, but he kept his shoulders square.

Sherlock said nothing, only waited. One button, two buttons, three left. John’s shirt slid open, and then off easily enough. Deliberately, he dropped it to the floor. Let it be dirty.

He bent over, untied his laces, toed off his shoes. Unsure how to be sexy about the whole thing. His hands fumbled with his belt buckle a little too long, but he could only play with it so long until that came undone as well.

Sherlock narrowed the short distance between them and slid John’s belt out of the loops of his trousers. He snapped it between his hands, a sharp sound that cracked through the air. “Should bind your hands together sometime with this. I’d like to see you gagged with your tie in your mouth. Would you like that?” John forgot how to breathe for a moment. The very words had gagged him and stolen away his voice. He was giving away just how much he would like that, indeed.

Sherlock smirked in acknowledgement of John’s interest, dropping the belt, opening the button on John’s trousers and then tugging down the zipper.  The hiss of it sounded loud to John, despite the radio and the loudness of his own heart. John pushed his trousers down, stepping out of them until he was just in his briefs. If he hadn’t done it himself, Sherlock would have, he was sure. The way Sherlock was looking at him made him want to, ridiculously, cover himself up. Hands over his nipples and crotch or something. As if there could possibly be something here that Sherlock hadn’t seen before.

Sherlock put one hand on John’s wrist to stop him. John hadn’t realized that he had instinctively made an attempt to preserve his modesty until Sherlock prevented it. Sherlock’s hand was warm on his, fingers circling his wrist. Sherlock’s eyes were on his face, reading everything; the false bravado, the flicker of nervousness, the intense arousal. John shivered, feeling totally bare.

With his other hand Sherlock reached down and rubbed John through his white briefs, watching first John’s face (the sharp intake of breath, the way blue eyes darkened to almost-black, teeth catching at his lip ) and then his own hand, forming the shape of John’s erection through the thin material. John didn’t want to look and then he did. The sight of it was obscene, Sherlock’s long fingers splayed against him, touching him so knowingly, intimately, how his underwear so obviously tented. It made John’s face flame. Made him want  to take off his glasses so that he wouldn’t have to see it in such sharp acuity.  

“Look at you,” Sherlock said, because he knew John was looking. His voice had that roughness to it that came out only during sex, that John knew so well. John’s blood ran hot all through his body, and a small damp spot formed underneath Sherlock’s fingers, right where they insisted on pressing and rubbing the material against the sensitive head of his cock - the wetness of his own excitement.

There had been a time when John had stopped Sherlock from touching him anywhere below the waist. There had been a time when John had reminded Sherlock “just kissing.” Now here he was, standing practically naked in Sherlock’s garage, being fondled and clutching at Sherlock’s shoulders, moaning for it. Wanting more than just touching.

“Take it off,” Sherlock suggested, so low and quiet that it was almost hypnotic. John’s hands moved without thinking; didn’t want to think too much about what he was doing, until he was naked except for his socks. He felt shaky on his own feet.

"You're still dressed," said John.

"You're very observant," Sherlock said.

It was too much vulnerability. John felt silly and exposed. Sherlock pressed a soft, affectionate kiss to the side of John’s face, and then his neck, dropped another one on his collarbone. He pulled back to look at John with his mesmerizing, memorizing stare, touching himself through his jeans, palming and rubbing at his own cock. John didn’t feel so silly anymore. Still very exposed.

He wanted to own it, to be bold, but he let Sherlock push him back until his bare bottom hit the cool metal of the hood of the car. "It's the way you look when you blush," Sherlock said, and John didn't understand, didn't care to understand. Sometimes Sherlock spoke in non sequiturs.

“Here,” Sherlock said, drawing a line with one finger across John’s chest, below his collarbone, above his nipples. “That’s where your blush stops.” He bent and pressed a kiss to the invisible line he had drawn. “That’s why I’m dressed. It makes you completely out of control.”  

“S-so then control me, why don’t you,” John said, face hot but managing the words - mostly sounding smooth, he thought, with only the slightest stutter.  

Sherlock was happy to oblige. He grabbed John firmly by the hips and turned him over. There was a certain amount of force but no violence in Sherlock's touch. John thought that he might not have minded if there had been.

Sherlock leaned over John’s back so that John could feel the heat of him, the firmness of him. John could feel the softness of Sherlock’s grease-streaked shirt, the roughness of the denim of Sherlock’s jeans against the back of his thighs, the metallic coolness of the car against his skin, coolness underneath his chest and stomach and thighs.

Sherlock took John’s hands by the wrist and pinned them behind his back as if John were under arrest. John gasped. Or maybe he moaned. He thought that they could certainly be arrested for what they were doing. They were guilty of a number of crimes. Homosexuality. Public indecency. Lewdness. Sodomy. Well, not that last one, not yet.

Sherlock kissed the back of John’s neck, soft at first, and then he dug his teeth in, sucking hard. John cried out and bucked. It was going to leave a mark. Sherlock loved to leave his marks all over him. The first time Sherlock had taken him for a drive, John had come home with exactly eight hickeys forming on his neck. He knew that it was eight because he had stood in front of the bathroom mirror and counted and touched each one, shivering as he felt the phantom sensation of Sherlock’s mouth on him, hot and wet and demanding.

“Shh, John,” Sherlock chided, kissing the sore spot. “Someone might see. And then what would you do?”

 John wanted to be reassured that no one would see. The Holmes residence was secluded by the neat rows of trees that surrounded the property, the garage off to the side, located at the end of a long driveway that sloped uphill. Still, he allowed himself to imagine that anyone could be driving up the quiet little street, even at this late bewitching hour. Any nosy neighbor could be peering out of their windows, unable to sleep. Sherlock lived in such a nice neighborhood, full of big white houses with even bigger yards. His neighbors would either call the police or drop dead immediately from a heart attack. John wasn’t sure which was better.

Danger thrilled through John’s heart, quickened his pulse.

John nodded, and held back that needy-sounding moan when Sherlock began to kiss down his spine. Sherlock was murmuring to himself like he was listing off each of the muscles as he kissed them. He had done that before; said he was tutoring John in his anatomy. Trapezius.  Supraspinatus. Teres. Latissimus. Obliques. Gluteus.

Sherlock's hands were on the cheeks of his ass, covering them, massaging them as if they were sore. “It’s all right to whine,” he said, thoughtful, considering.

“That won’t draw too much attention,” Sherlock said.

 

Later, John would hear the whining as if it were coming from somewhere else. It was be too embarrassing to associate those desperate, undignified noises with himself.

And Sherlock would make him beg - _Ask for it,_  he’d tell John, _with that filthy mouth of yours._

John’s face as red as the T-bird but the shame not enough to stop him. Cheek pressed against the cool metal of the car; head down, ass in the air , presenting himself.   _Please, please,_ and _fuck me, give it to me, I want to feel you inside me, Sherlock, oh, Sherlock, please._

 _Are you sure?_ Sherlock would ask him, always careful, always checking on him. He was frustratingly gentle. Playing as if it were John's first time, and he had to be careful, careful, pushing his fingers inside one by one as John had lain, nervously willing, in the backseat of his car. Edge of danger in the timbre of Sherlock’s voice that made heat sweep over John’s cheeks, down his chest, the pit of his stomach. It was obvious in the flush of his nipples, the twitch and strain of his cock, the throb inside of him.

John wanted to be spread open, pushed down, he wanted sex just like this, hot shame and excitement mixed together in the pit of his stomach until it was like a dagger of desire straight through his gut.

He wanted the lip of the fender nipping at his thighs while Sherlock pounded into him, John’s hands sliding uselessly over the smooth surface of the beautiful red and white steel. He wanted Sherlock’s hands on his hips, holding onto him to keep him from sliding, forcing him to stay in place. He wanted to see if he would cry, what that was like. He wanted to broken apart and put back together again, better than before, just like one of Sherlock’s engines.  

For Sherlock, John would always say yes.

 

 

* * *

 

 

John is woken up by the cold in the motel room. He’s shivering, naked, wrapped in only a sheet.  The bed is empty.

He gets up, instinctively, grabbing the blanket at the end of the bed - tucked in far too tight - and gives it a good yank so that he can pull it around him. Sherlock’s pillow is askew, dimpled in where Sherlock’s head had been. The clock on the nightstand reads 4:38.

Sherlock is outside. John can see him through the large front window: a dark figure vivisected by the white slats of  vertical vinyl blinds. It’s still dark out and he is half-lit by the yellow glow of the recessed lights outside their room. He seems to be enjoying the beautiful view of the parking lot.  A light wraith of smoke curls out from his cigarette.

Tomorrow they will head to Bilke’s Western Museum before they leave Kansas. It’s filled with antique bits, spurs, saddles, and all sorts of other cowboy things. Jesse James robbed the bank across the street from it. Maybe John will pick up another souvenir.

John squints and his vision blurs, Sherlock’s image going soft like a smudge in a photograph. Maybe a day will come when the photographs he’s taken are all he’ll have left of Sherlock. It is a 4 am thought that he cannot shake.

He tries to think if he will be able to stand it. Wraps the blanket tighter around himself, but he can’t seem to get warm.

 

John pretends to be asleep when Sherlock slides back into bed. Sherlock traces his fingers over John’s skin as if absorbing him, like there is something here that needs to be preserved. John squeezes his eyes shut and does not think he can stand it.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Sherlock’s car!!](https://farm3.static.flickr.com/2472/4009360440_960de9d649_o.jpg)
> 
>  
> 
> Sherlock’s got a new car. His other car was a bit older; hot rodded because back then cars weren’t made with so much power. (Towards the late 1950s-1960s they started making more powerful cars; the 1960s was the era of the muscle car. ) The 1958 Ford Thunderbird was the first T-bird model to have a backseat...you can bet Sherlock saw that and was like, “Oh hell yeah.” 
> 
> Also: _“Sherlock came over after a while, the way he usually did, when he was bored of pretending not to know that John was there.”_  
>  Can you imagine Sherlock just working, flexing unnecessarily, pushing an errant curl away from his forehead, bending over to show off his ass, just loving the fact that he has an audience - oh hello John didn’t see you there, I don’t know what you’re talking about I always work on my car like I’m going for Mr. July in a “Hot Boys and Hot Rods” calendar  
> what a fucking dork omfg. 
> 
> thanks to PrettyArbitrary and angelblack3 for their help, support, and encouragement on this chapter!! Pretty helped me choose the car and brainstormed with me on lots of car-words. Thank you to my love, Archia, for being a strict editor ahaha
> 
>  **Playlist for this chapter:**
> 
> [This Magic Moment - The Drifters (1960)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul041CSNJto)  
> [There Goes My Baby - The Drifters (1959)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3HXy9mGPpI)  
> [I Fall to Pieces - Patsy Cline (1961) ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuZTk1hdpMs)


	4. Sarah

It isn’t like John has never noticed girls. He likes girls. He likes the way they look, the way they talk, the different perfumes they wear. He likes the way they wear their hair and the curves of their bodies, the softness of their hands.  

He imagined himself kissing girls, touching them, making them coo and sigh against him. He had always thought of himself romancing a girl, sweeping her off her feet like a regular Prince Charming. He can’t remember a time where he hasn’t liked girls. That’s normal. That’s good and right.

It’s just that he likes the other thing, too, and that’s a bit less good and not at all right.

It was Sherlock who insisted that he date. John hadn’t wanted to, but he didn’t want people to think he was weird or a loser either, like Sherlock said that they would. He was well-liked enough, after all, and he was on the football team - although he thought himself only a passing player. It wasn’t like he was a total nerd. People would think something was wrong with him if he didn’t date.

So John chose Sarah, a nice girl from his Biology class who was a fair friend and an even better lab partner. She looked so pleased at being chosen that John immediately felt bad, because he knew all too well the pleasure of having been chosen.

He and Sarah did all the things that he always thought he would do with a girl. They went to the movies and they went to the malt shoppe. At school he carried her books for her and often held her hand. He even took her up to Makeout Point because he had that damn reputation to uphold. (Five States Watson or something? God only knew where _that_ had come from.) She let him kiss her there, and it was all sweet and soft and not like kissing Sherlock at all (and his stomach knotted up funny, thinking of Sherlock) and although it seemed that they both enjoyed it he couldn’t help smiling with relief when she said, “Just kissing, John,” because she was a good girl, you see.

John liked Sarah. He could see himself dating her for a while if dating was just that, holding hands and sharing milkshakes and soft, shy kisses stolen on the sly. She never said anything about all the time he spent with Sherlock or the nights he cancelled suddenly, although once he stood her up by accident and she wouldn’t speak to him for a week. She mostly forgave him after he showed up on her doorstep with flowers and sincerest apologies and purpling bruises in the shape of Sherlock’s mouth all down the plane of his stomach and inside his thighs where no one could see.  

 

“Are you going to take her to the Fall Ball?” Sherlock asked suddenly one afternoon. He was lounging on John’s bed, carefree and lackadaisical, while John was being tortured by trigonometry.

“I don’t know,” said John. “Maybe.”

“You have to ask her. Everybody knows you’re an item now. It’s your social obligation. I can’t believe you haven’t asked her yet.”

“I don’t know,” John repeated. He was currently more concerned with the sides of triangles than with the high school social scene. “I don’t much like dances.”

“That’s because you’re not confident in your dancing ability.” Sherlock leapt off of the bed and walked over to the record player. He thumbed through John’s record collection, muttering to himself; his whole body vibrating with a sudden electric energy. “No, no, no, horrible, _ugh_ ,” Sherlock said, while John felt slightly insulted at Sherlock’s assessment of his taste in music, which he happened to think was pretty swell.

Finally Sherlock seemed to have found something not-horrible, because he snatched it up with a triumphant _“Ah-ha!”_ and placed the 45 on the record player.

The first few familiar chords made John smile, followed by the soulful croon: _“Only you…can make this world seem right…”_

His mother loved this song. It used to play on the radio all the time when John was younger. He remembered a night in May, after the dishes had been put away, the kitchen still warm from the oven, smelling savory from the roast she had made for dinner. Yellow bulb of the kitchen light casting a warm glow over everything. “Come dance with Momma, John,” she’d said, her lipsticked mouth laughing as she swept him up into her arms. The swish of her skirt as she twirled with him around the room, giggling, the heady, floral scent of her perfume - _Seven Winds_ \- and the sour/sweet smell of the wine she’d been drinking. John thought that she’d never looked so beautiful, blue eyes crinkled with smile lines, blonde hair a halo of soft waves around her face when he looked up at her, all of her made golden by the kitchen light. She was so graceful, her skirt blooming like a flower at every turn. They were twirling, laughing together, John getting dizzy from all the spinning, his mother already dizzy from the wine. He’d been eleven years old at the time, her little man.

 _“Only you…can make the darkness bright....”_  

“We’ll start out with a  slow song. That ought to be easy enough for you,” said Sherlock, as he took John by the hand and pulled him up from his seat. “A simple box step. Four count: 1, 2, 3, 4. Come on, put your hand on my shoulder. Ready?”

John thought that if Sherlock was teaching him how to dance with Sarah then he really ought to be the one leading, but he said nothing of it. Instead he smiled up at Sherlock, allowing himself to be led.

_“Only you, and you alone, can thrill me like you do…”_

“I’ll lead you first and show you how to do it. Then you can give it a try,” Sherlock explained himself, as if he could read John’s mind. One of these days, John thought, he really would develop telepathy - the kind that would _Amaze your friends and astound your family!_ \- and there would be no more secrets between them.      

“You’ll put her hand on her waist, like this. Just relax and feel the sway of the music.”

Sherlock’s hand on his waist pulled him in close, until they were flush together. They were dancing closer than any school dance chaperone would ever allow, with no room for the Holy Ghost between them. John slid his hand further up Sherlock’s shoulder, holding onto him as they danced carefully in gentle rhythm, right foot, left foot, left, right, 1,2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.

“She might put her head against your chest.”

“Like this?”

John could hear Sherlock’s heartbeat when he rested his cheek against his chest. He was so warm. When John breathed in he could smell him, leather and cigarettes and warm scent of musk, wholesome, clean laundry smell of his shirt. Due to their height difference they slotted together perfectly, John’s head tucked underneath Sherlock’s chin. John had always felt a bit peeved that he had never quite gotten that growth spurt everyone had promised him would happen as he got older, but in times like this, maybe he didn’t mind it so much.

He pressed his face against the soft white cotton of Sherlock’s shirt and breathed him in greedily, savoring the moment.

“She’ll like it, if you hold her close like this.” Sherlock’s hand slid from his waist to the small of his back, holding him tenderly. “Are you paying attention?”

“Yes,” said John. He leaned up to nuzzle Sherlock’s throat. “You’re an excellent dance instructor.”

Sherlock felt so real: the solidness of his chest, the strength of his arms. John thought there was no place in the world that he’d rather be. Sherlock’s arms tightened around him, natural and possessive. John was imbued with a sense of belonging: this was where he belonged, this was who he belonged to.

_“...for it’s true, you are my destiny….”_

“And then you spin her,” Sherlock said, taking John’s hand and guiding him. “1, 2, 3, 4.” His touch was confident and sure, his movements deliberate; a natural leader. He caught John as he came back to starting position, placing his hand on his lower back. “Now signal for the dip.”

John slid his arm around Sherlock’s shoulders, leaning back as Sherlock supported him. Sherlock held him there for a moment, eyes searching John’s face for something undefinable. He was so close. John found himself, once again, captivated by the flecks of green in his eyes, lost in the icy pallor of them. He could see every individual eyelash, the thin shadows they cast over Sherlock’s cheeks. He felt his breath and pulse quicken on primal instinct, blood stirred by the danger of what he wanted.

“Now this is the part where you kiss her,” said Sherlock.

“You better show me that, too,” John breathed.

Sherlock’s mouth on his was uncharacteristically soft - warm lips, gentle pressure. John’s heart clenched unexpectedly in his chest.  There was something longing about it. It wasn’t nearly long enough.  The kiss lingered on John’s lips for a while afterwards, like the last few drops of sweet wine upon the tongue. And John wondered, could this ever be enough?

 

_“...you’re my dream come true, my one and only you…”_

The Fall Ball had the school gymnasium decked out in autumnal colors, red and orange and yellow. Brown paper trees lined the walls, each of them decorated with taped-on white Christmas lights. Sarah looked girlishly beautiful; her dress was a salmon pink affair with a burst of flowers on the shoulder that she kept fussing with.  She wore a matching flower in her carefully curled hair that she did not dare touch, for fear of mussing it up. John wore a pink carnation in his rented suit to match that.  

When he led her out onto the dance floor he found himself emboldened with the newfound confidence of one who has a vague idea of what they are doing. His steps were sure, and he took care to look into her eyes instead of looking down. He did not even step on her feet once.

She fit perfectly in his arms; they were about the same height.  Lots of twirling, Sherlock had advised, could make any novice look like an expert. Sarah’s skirt was a cloud of pink taffeta and crinoline, and her overly sweet perfume swirled around them both. She felt surprisingly delicate, as if John could break her if he weren’t careful.

He spun her and dipped her. She gasped when he leaned in for the kiss, her cheeks flushing a pretty pink that brightened the rouge on her cheeks. He held it for just a second, kept it dry and chaste.

“John,” she said. “You’re magnificent.”

“Thanks,” he said, beaming at the praise, beaming with relief. Her words eased a pressure from his chest, a fear he didn’t know how to name. “You look lovely,” he said, and kissed the back of her hand.

“You’re a very good dancer.”

“I didn’t used to be,” he admitted. “I had a very good teacher.”

“Oh?” Sarah smiled. “Who was it? Should I be jealous?”

“Don’t be silly,” John said, and pecked her lightly on the mouth. “You’re the only girl for me.”

 

He dropped her off at home afterwards, walked her up to the front door. They stood on her doorstep, the porchlight left on for her although the house was dark and quiet.

“I had a wonderful time,” Sarah said, and John replied that so had he. He smiled at her, took both of her hands into his and squeezed them gently.

She looked at the door and then back at him, dropped her eyes and asked, wouldn’t he maybe like to come in for a while?

“My parents are _definitely_ asleep,” she added.

John looked at her, the porchlight in her hair and the moonlight in her eyes, and thought of how delicate she’d felt in his arms, and how she was a good girl, and he was a good boy, you see, and he said, “Then we shouldn’t wake them.”

He kissed her on her soft pink mouth - not too long, nice and sweet - and bade her goodnight. He watched her unlock the door, and waited to be sure that she was safely inside. It was the gentlemanly thing to do, after all.

 

John found Sherlock sitting on his bed when he got home, having clearly let himself in with the spare key the Watsons kept in the flowerpot. “Did you have a good time at the dance?”

 “You didn’t have to wait up for me,” John said.

“I wasn’t waiting,” Sherlock snapped, but his hands on John were quick, impatient, and his kisses immediately greedy, as he undressed him with the rushed urgency of someone who has already wasted too much time.

 

John and Sarah dated for seven months, a small eternity in high school time. Everybody considered her jacketed even if John never actually gave her his jacket, even after he made Varsity. He planned on giving her his class ring, though, because that was the thing to do when you’d been together for an eternity. He took her out to dinner at a nice restaurant in town - Angelo’s - and sat her down across from the table where he and Sherlock often sat.  She was a decent girl, so patient with him, so kind. All understanding like; she never asked for too much or demanded answers John couldn’t give.  So he looked into her eyes over candlelight and took her hand in one of his, reached into his pocket with the other, said, “Sarah, I have something for you…”

And then he said, “Wait, where is it?”

It didn’t make any sense. He’d been certain he’d placed it into his pocket earlier that day. He’d worried it over and over in his fingers as if he were trying to polish brass into gold.

While he fumbled and searched for it, checking first one pocket and then the other, standing up in the middle of the restaurant and then getting onto his knees, looking underneath his chair, and then the table, Sarah said, “John, John, wait, get up...we need to talk.” 

It was just as well that he couldn’t find it. Sarah had a lot to tell him, like he was a nice boy, and she really, really liked him, and they’d had a swell time together, but...

“But...?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Do you even like me the way I like you?”

“Of course I do, Sarah, of _course_ I do,” John was quick to reassure. He reached for her hand again but this time she did not give it to him.

“I’m not so sure,” she said, and shook her head. “Sometimes when we’re together it’s like you’re here but...you’re not, like you’re off somewhere else.”

“Don’t be silly,” said John. “Where else could I be?” The words sounded hollow and blank in his own ears.

“I guess what I’m saying is that sometimes I feel like your heart just isn’t in it, you know?”

“I’m so sorry,” John said, because he was.

She wasn’t wrong. They could look high and low, but his heart was nowhere near to be found. Where was it, neither of them wanted to ask. Like a fool he’d lost it. John was afraid that it was in someone else’s pocket, being worried over with strong, slender fingers - the touch familiar, deft yet unsure.

How could he give it away? It didn’t belong to him, not anymore.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Seven Winds perfume ad](http://file.vintageadbrowser.com/78n0mgwhtcmyjy.jpg)
> 
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> 
>  
> 
> **Playlist:**  
> [ Only You - The Platters (1955) ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FygIKsnkCw)


	5. Oklahoma

“ **WELCOME TO OKLAHOMA** ” reads the sign in the shape of the panhandle state. John makes Sherlock pull over so that they can get out and take pictures of it: John hanging off of the panhandle in one shot, Sherlock standing next to the sign, arms crossed and scowling in the next.

It is to John’s credit that he waits a whole five minutes before he says, “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

To which Sherlock stares at him blankly.

“If that’s a new pet name I’m havin none of it,” he finally decides, after a moment. “Also, yes, judging by the sign you are standing next to, we have crossed state lines and are now, officially, in Oklahoma.”

“...where the wind comes sweeping down the plain,” John says, unable to resist.

“What?”

“And the waving wheat can sure smell sweet, when the wind comes right behind the rain!”

Sherlock makes a noise that is somewhere between confusion and disgust; a typical ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about but I am almost certain that it is stupid but I refuse to admit I don’t know what you’re talking about’ Sherlock kind of sound. John sings not-so-quietly to himself for the next 10 miles, until Sherlock threatens to throw his souvenir collection out the window if he doesn’t stop, and then John switches to humming underneath his breath. Then somewhere around Miami (the Oklahoma one, not the beaches one), Sherlock mutters, “...doin’ fine, Oklahoma...Oklahoma, O.K.!”

John breaks out into laughter and Sherlock threatens to kill him for getting something so inane and terrible stuck in his head. When John doesn’t stop laughing, unwaveringly brave in the face of such serious threats upon his life, Sherlock proceeds to go into graphic detail about just how he would go about killing John Watson. It’d be poison, of course, John always accepts food and drink from him without question, and he could drug John so easily, slip him chemicals and compounds without his ever noticing, he could miss an entire Wednesday without even knowing about it, and Sherlock could just do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. John stops laughing, and Sherlock stops talking when he notices that John’s gone all wide-eyed and slightly breathless, and then he has to pull over so that he can put his hands all over John and kiss him in between accusations of “you awful pervert” while John counters with kisses and protests of, “No way, you’re the sicko, you sicko.”

 

* * *

 

A few years back, Tulsa, Oklahoma was dubbed America’s Most Beautiful City by Time magazine. A city with wide, clean streets...towering buildings that gleam in the clear, fresh air of a smokeless industrial center . . . mile upon mile of residential areas as beautiful as a quarter million prideful residents can make them . . . one of the nation's finest vacationlands right next door . . . and general --

“Hey!” says John. “Give that back, I was reading that!”

“Read it to yourself, don’t read it out loud,” Sherlock says.

“Fine, give it here.”

Sherlock tosses John’s copy of _Tulsa, I.T._ into the backseat.

“Great,” says John. “Now I’ll never know exactly what general things Tulsa is known for.”

“General abuse of ellipses,” Sherlock informs him.

 

Tulsa: “Oil Capital of the World.” The city sprawls out with beautiful buildings in Art Deco style, erected as tribute to the power of man, uplifted by the gods of industry. The ornate facades and bold geometry reach towards the sky - joyful, joyful, ever joyful for the progress of mankind.

John is going to get neck strain from looking up, Sherlock says. Sherlock would also like him to stop taking pictures that are angled directly up his nose.

John is conveniently too busy snapping photos to hear.

The original Tulsa was part of Indian Territory and first settled by the Lochapoka and Creek tribes in 1836. They established their settlement under a large oak tree at what is now known as the intersection of Cheyenne Avenue and 18th Street. Their new home they named _Tallasi_ \- “Old Town” in the Creek language, which was later bastardized by white men’s tongues into “Tulsa.”  Even when the place was new, it was still old.

John knows that feeling, of something being new and yet it has somehow existed all along.

Sherlock has no interest in architecture. He doesn’t much care for the fact that Tulsa is considered the birthplace of Route 66, brought into existence by businessman Cyrus Avery, the Father of Route 66. He has no interest in buying ice cream to pose for a picture underneath the giant neon sign that reads:

 

“ **Meadow Gold**.

Milk, Ice Cream.

 _Beatrice Foods Co._ ”

 

Each face of the sign stands 30 feet by 30 feet, looking proudly down upon the stretch of Route 66 that passes through 11th Street and Lewis Avenue.  

Sherlock eats his caramel fudge & pistachio cone and comments how the neon sign isn’t actually neon; it is in fact, filled with argon. John snaps a picture of him with pale-green ice cream on his face while he’s talking. When Sherlock reaches for the camera John quickly pushes the ice cream into Sherlock’s face as a defensive maneuver and then snaps another picture while he still has his life.

 

* * *

 

At the end of the day Sherlock tells John to go find a bar, and he’ll meet them him there by and by. John goes wandering, taking his time, finds a place calling itself The Buccaneer.  It’s small and none too fancy, dark inside the way all bars are, whether it be high noon or midnight. He’s not yet old enough to drink but he stands up tall and strides in like he belongs there.

He orders a Coke, without the straw. He might not be able to order beer but he’s gonna drink his Coke like a man, goshdarnit.  

Nobody else notices the stranger, but John’s eye is drawn to his swagger, and shamefully, the deliberate movement of his hips. He walks like he tames broncos. A real cowboy. Like John Wayne, that unconquerable loner. Long, lean lines and a figure sharp enough to cut glass. He probably smokes Marlboros. There’s a feeling in John’s throat so tight and dry that he gulps down his Coke too quick to counter it and the bubbles burn him all the way down.  

“Let me buy you another,” the stranger drawls, in a voice too close and rough in that same too-close way, so that it feels like stubble grazing over the back of John’s neck. John nods, smiles sure, playing at older - like the dregs of caramel liquid in his glass are whiskey and not cola.  

He is old enough, now. Old enough for this wanting. To know what that flip in his tummy means, and to know when he’s being flirted with, even when it comes from another boy. A man. The slight curl of a lip, inviting; the intense appraisal through dark lowered lashes. The slow drag on the cigarette, and the shape of those full lips kissed together on the exhale, surrounding John in a wraith of smoke.  

They play 20 questions with each other, trying to divine each other’s backstories. But it only takes the stranger one question (“Korea?”) to figure out that John is a soldier. A war veteran, in fact. John tells him he was shot in the shoulder to make it interesting, but then later forgets and favors his left leg, feeling the pangs of a phantom injury.

The stranger, in a gravely serious voice, tells John that he is a rum-runner. A man who is capable of anything.

They share a secret smile, hidden behind the fizz of Coke-or-maybe-whiskey.

Here they are, two strangers in a bar. Two boys - men - sharing a drink, some sad stories for the night. Two men. John’s heart tripping on the thrill of doing something illegal, fighting the urge to look around guiltily. Surely everybody knows. The bartender, the group of men playing pool in the corner, they all must hear him. His wanting is so loud. It screams in his body when the dark stranger’s leg brushes against his - damn his leg! - a deliberate accident. He could be taken out and hanged for the thoughts that are running through his head.

But no one even glances at them once. John licks the cool rim of his glass, and then his own lip, hears the catch in the stranger’s throat. He is getting away with something terrible.

The man has a razor-gaze, and just one look up and down is enough to make an incision line and make John want to spill his insides out. All that sin bubbling up inside of him, pouring out.

There’s a low, thunder roll of fear (anticipation?) through him when the man motions for him to get up and follow him. A bright lightning clap of a thought: **DANGER** , flashing red, this man might be looking to hurt him, looking for a fight and not a f-- the other thing, the word that still makes John feel hot and flush a little, even inside the privacy of his own mind.

Instead he is being led to the toilets - the other kind of danger, then.

The bathroom is small but uncommonly clean; two dark wooden stalls and a row of three gleaming urinals, brown and off-white tile on the walls just this side of ugly. It’s much too bright inside the stall, and there are men’s voices just outside as the evening gets later and the bar gets busier, and the man’s mouth is upon his, open, kissing, insistent, urgent hot press of lips to his, John lets it happen, happens to kiss back with everything inside of him, all the sin bubbling to the surface.

He is kissing a stranger; and it is a stranger thing still, to be kissing a man. John surging, full of boldness. He feels dangerous, mouth opening for a stranger’s in a strange place. His adrenaline spikes at hearing the clink of glasses and background noise of bar chatter.  

John bucks against the man like a bronco, waiting to be ridden and tamed.

“What’s your name?” he manages to murmur between kisses.

The stranger laughs. “Why? So you know what to scream later?”

His confidence is addictive, makes John’s skin prickle with pleasure at the base of his neck and all down his spine.

The man presses him back against the locked stall door, heat along John’s body at all the points they connect, heat of male breath against his cheek, his ear, chased by the molten wet heat of the stranger’s mouth, suggestions made real. The solid heat of another man’s erection pressing into his stomach. John struggles to catch up with his own wanting, tries to kiss back, is touching everywhere he can reach,  fingers skimming underneath the stranger’s white shirt, over the edge of his blue jeans but the man is pushing his hands away. Instead he opens John’s trousers with terrifying efficiency, slides both hot hands over the curve of John’s ass, cups him and holds him and squeezes, pulls John close and allows him to rut against him, claims John’s mouth again.  

And so he whispers in between kisses, “The name is Sherlock Holmes” and John is whispering back “John, John Watson” their names melding together in the same breath, introducing themselves to each other, playing at being lost, playing at finding each other, playing at being older, after all this time, waiting all this time, the desperate hope that no matter the time or place, that they would find each other.

Sherlock’s mouth open and sucking at John’s neck, John pushing mindlessly back against him. John can feel each and every long finger pressing against his bare skin, gripping his flesh, then feels  Sherlock’s finger sliding in between, delicate and nudging over that secret hot place that makes John keen, an animal sound for animal needs.

Sherlock pressed against him, body pinning him to the stall, tongue and then teeth on John’s skin and rubbing a finger against John _there_ , dry, scrape of skin over sensitive flesh, threatening to push inside, and then pressing in just a little, _there,_ penetrating shallowly into his hole.  The dirtiness of it brings John nearly to his knees, the forbiddenness of it, this evil thing they are doing in public-private space under too-bright lights and John is moaning, spilling, all the sin spilling out.

How hotly and easily he comes against Sherlock, his heart filling with reverence for something unnameable. He thinks about how he wants to drop to his knees and so he does, languid and worshipful. He catches Sherlock off guard, then makes him gasp and scrabble against the bathroom stall, Sherlock’s head falling back, John’s name upon his lips; hail John Watson, full of grace.

  
For they who were lost, in each other they are found.  


	6. Jeanette

After Sarah there had been Liza and Suzy and Pamela. And then there had been Jeanette.

 

Jeanette was different from all the other girls that John had known. The first time he met her she was smoking behind the school while the rest of her class was in gym. “Hey, bean,” she said, smiled like she wanted to sell him something, said, “Don’t be shy,” and beckoned him over. “Wanna try?” She’d waved a Lucky Strike at him, smudged pink with her lipstick.

He would taste the cigarettes on her breath later, when she hedged him up against a wall and kissed him. He would discover that he liked looking up at her. She was a very handsome girl. With her grey eyes and long dark ponytail and her long, coltish legs, she was far too striking for an ordinary word like “pretty.”

Good girls, of course, did not cut class and they did not smoke anywhere - not behind the school or underneath the bleachers or behind the arts building. Jeanette was wholly uninterested in what good girls were meant to do. She got thrown out of Home Ec one morning after she got into a fight with Mrs. Bellamy, shouting that she would rather _die_ than become any man’s good little house slave. She got detention for her trouble.

John had only gotten detention once and it was for too many missed classes and it hadn’t happened again since Sherlock graduated. He was rightfully worried for Jeanette. “But what about your permanent record?”

“Oh, tell me you don’t actually believe that old bit, do you?” she’d laughed. “You’re such a square,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek.

Apparently Jeanette was in and out of detention at least once a month. If a permanent record did exist, no school was ever going to accept her.

“It’s all right, baby,” she said. “Detention’s just another chance to catch up on my beauty sleep.”

He was meant to take her to the Spring Fling, but five detentions in three months meant that she was _grounded_ and when he stopped by her house he was told to just drive on by. Her father wouldn’t even let him get out of the car. John had to escort Harry anyways and so he went stag to the dance.  

An hour into the evening he felt a tap on his shoulder while refilling his punch cup. He turned around to see Jeanette - her dark hair wind-ruffled from the bike ride to the school, but still lovely in her floral purple dress.

Her lipstick was so bright one of the chaperones would make her wipe it off later. She grinned at him and said, “Come on, snake, let’s rattle!” as if it were Sadie Hawkins but it wasn’t. “I could tell you’d wanna ask me, so I saved you the trouble.”

She kissed like she danced, leading him. As if she were saving him the trouble. Other girls expected John to be gentle with them, but Jeanette was not gentle with him. She crawled over him easily in the back of his momma’s car, she put her hands wherever she wanted them without asking if it was all right. It was more than all right. He was amazed at her daring; he found her amazing.

Maybe, if he had met her earlier, they coulda really been something.

If he had met her earlier.

Sherlock said she was as fine a girl as any.

“She really wants me to go out with her,” John told him.

“So go out with her,” Sherlock said. This was the same thing he had said about Sarah and Liza and Suzy and Pamela. “Look, if you don’t go out with girls people will talk.”

John wondered if Sherlock did anything to keep people from talking but he did not ask.

“It’s called discretion. Get with it,” Sherlock said, and then he steepled his hands together underneath his chin and closed his eyes, which meant the conversation was over.

So John got with Jeanette. He thought of it as going undercover, which was how he had rationalized Liza and Suzy and Pamela.  Of course, he had not actually gone under the covers with any of them. With Jeanette it was a real possibility. She was what they called a “fast” girl. She was like a Mercedes Gullwing Coupe or maybe a Chevy Corvette. And she had a heck of a classy chassis.

Sherlock thought little of Jeanette and spoke even less of her. He had always been quite vocal on the topic of John’s girlfriends. He seemed to take a strange delight in pointing out what he considered their fatal flaws.

On Sarah’s inoffensive blandness: “She’s like oatmeal,” Sherlock had decreed.

“I like oatmeal,” John said, cheerily.

On Liza’s utter ignorance masquerading as purity: “Don’t kid yourself, kid. She wants it, she’s just too much of an idiot to know what it is that she wants.”

“She’s the daughter of a minister,” John pointed out.

Sherlock scoffed. “She probably thinks intercourse is something that’s served between the appetizer and the entree.”

And Suzy had an intense affection for an inarguably ridiculous little dog.

John said, “Well, that _is_ a ridiculous little dog.”

Or had it been Pamela, with the dog?

On Jeanette, however, Sherlock had no witticisms or snarky observations to share.  John might say, “I’m thinking of taking Jeanette down to the roller rink. What do you think? Is that all right?”

To which Sherlock would answer, “Did you hear about Gareth Jones? He collapsed of a fatal cardiac event in the middle of the live television production of _Underground_ and they continued the play around his death.”

 

Or John might say, “Jeanette’s been telling me about this book she’s reading called ‘The Second Sex’, it sounds fascinating.”

And Sherlock would answer, “Who?”

“Jeanette,” John would have to repeat himself. “You know. The girl I’m dating.”

Sherlock would stare at him blankly.

“Jeanette. You know. Tall, dark hair, grey eyes, slim.” John would not say beautiful, although she was.

“I don’t recall.”

“You know, _Jeanette._ ”

“You keep on saying her name as if that word has any meaning to me.”

“But you _know_ who she is.”

“Wait,” Sherlock might say. “Is she the one with the dog? Are you still seeing her? I was certain you broke up with her ages ago.”

“No, no,” John would reply. “The one with the dog was Pamela.” (Or was it Suzy?) “And I did break up with her. I’m seeing Jeanette now.”

“Oh,” Sherlock would say. “Still? Does she make you walk her dog?”

“Well, she doesn’t have a dog. I think,” John would reply. “She likes cats. I think.”

“Is that what you wanted to discuss? Cats?” Sherlock would tease. “Now why would you want to talk about cats when there are so many more subjects of interest in this world?”

“Oh?” John would reply, interest piqued. “Like what, huh?”

And the types of discussion that followed perhaps didn’t require any complicated concepts, but John always felt illuminated, all the same.

 

“What’s this?” Jeanette asked. She had pulled the collar of his shirt open for her next kiss, only to find a fading bruise on his shoulder.

“I walked into a door,” John said, bold-faced.

“Well, aren’t you just a clumsy Clyde,” she said, and placed a pink lipstick print directly over the purpling mark.

 

There were no obvious problems until he saw Sherlock at the roller rink. And then he recognized his car at the drive in. And again at the ice cream parlor.

 

“Wow, check out that cool cat,” Jeanette said, while they were seated in a booth at Pop’s Chocolate Shoppe on Main. “Look at him go. He must think he’s just the ginchiest.”

John knew, without looking, who it had to be.  

“Who?” John said. “I hadn’t noticed him,” he said, although he felt like he always noticed whenever Sherlock walked into a room. Everybody did. Sherlock was someone of note.

“Aww, don’t be jealous, baby,” Jeanette said, and chucked him on the chin. “You know all my lovin’s for you.”  

John watched Sherlock sit at the counter and order a strawberry milkshake even though he really preferred chocolate malts. Sherlock looked up; their eyes met. It was magnetic, that pull. North pole to south pole. He felt it tugging at his core. His insides were hot magma.

“Do you know him?” Jeanette asked.  

“Nah,” said John, and averted his eyes. He reached for Jeanette’s hand and gave it a squeeze, hoping she would take credit for the brightness in his cheeks.

 

“You have to stop following me,” he later confronted Sherlock, who was in his lab/garage. Sherlock Holmes was the only person John knew with a lab-slash-garage. “I don’t need a chaperone on my dates.”

“No one’s following you,” Sherlock said. Or at least John thought he said. It was very hard to hear him over the clang of his wrench banging against an old engine.

“Can you not do that when I’m trying to talk to you?”

Sherlock stopped. He pushed a curl out of his face with the back of his hand; he still left a smudge of grease on his forehead.

“Stop being paranoid.”

“Were you or were you not at Pop’s on Main today?” John asked him. “Looked an awful lot like you. Same hair and everything.”

“I am allowed to go to the malt shop whether or not you are there,” said Sherlock. “I like milkshakes.”

“You like _chocolate malts!_ ” John accused hotly.

“All the more reason to go to a malt shop,” Sherlock replied. He was putting on the tilt sign and absolutely shameless about it.

“Look, like I said before, if it bugs you that I’m going out with her all you gotta do is say so. I’ll quit it.”

“No one’s bugged. Who’s bugged? Not me,” Sherlock shrugged. “I’m cool.”   

“Right,” John said. “You’re always cool.” He paused. “Jeanette says her parents are out of town this weekend.”

John had asked her if she was planning a party. She had grinned at him and replied that yes, she was, but the guest list was _very_ small.

“Bully for them,” said Sherlock.

“Well?” John prompted.

“Well, what?”

“Well, you know what!”

“Well, so you want to sleep with her, ‘well?’ Well, you’re waiting for my blessing, ‘well?’”

John didn’t know what he wanted Sherlock to say. _Don’t do it._ Or maybe he did. 

Sherlock shrugged. “Sleep with her, don’t sleep with her, knock her up. Hell, have twins. None of my beeswax.”

“All right,” said John. “Fine idea. Boss idea. You’re right. It’s none of your beeswax.”

“I’m always right,” Sherlock said.  John thought that he sounded bitter about it, or at least dissatisfied, but before he could decide, Sherlock went right back to banging and clanging on the engine and anything else John said was lost in the noise.

 

It was a Friday when John went over to Jeanette’s house. Her mother was a homemaker and her father worked for Chrysler.   _A real company man,_ Jeanette called him, not bothering to hide the scorn in her voice. Their house was white with violet-blue shutters and a lime green door. They grew daffodils and lilies in the garden. Pink flamingoes perched, one-footed, on the lawn. Jeanette’s life was caged in by a white picket fence.

“Welcome,” Jeanette said, making a grand, sarcastic gesture. Her presence was too big for her picturesque little home;  she clashed with the butter-yellow wallpaper, the baby-blue vase of daisies on the coffee table. Next to the daisies sat the August issue of _Better Homes and Gardens,_ promising **14 pages of new color schemes!**

The windows were shrouded with the ugliest set of curtains John had ever seen.

“Are those--?” John asked.

“Yes,” said Jeanette. “Those are poodles.  Officially, per the Sears catalogue: Poodles Frolicking on Shiny Textured Light Tan with Atomic Harlequin Diamonds.”

John laughed.

“Don’t snicker, Doodles,” Jeanette said.

“Are the poodles wearing tiny _hats_? On their noodles?” he couldn’t help himself.

“Hey, if you like those so much,” Jeanette said. “You should check out the curtains in my bedroom.”

“Oh,” said John. “Okay.”

John didn’t see anything in the bedroom other than the dark curtain of Jeanette’s hair falling around him as she pushed him onto the bed. The sheets were alarmingly, surprisingly pink. He saw the grey of her eyes and the sweeping shadow of her lashes and then he closed his eyes as well.  He felt her body surge against him and his own surged in response. It was happening. His first time with a girl. It was really happening.

He got hard. That was a relief. Of course he was a teenager and sex was on the menu and Jeanette was gorgeous, and he wanted her, but somehow it was still a relief that he could.  He was excited, erect, aroused. He wasn’t deficit or bent or broken. He loved the way she kissed him and the softness of her body. He was still all right.

Jeanette guided his hand to the soft, supple curve of her breast and took his other hand and led him up her skirt. The forbidden territory, that unknown land.  Her tongue pushed into his mouth and he could feel the slick wet woman-ness of her in that sacred place between her legs,  and she pulled away to whisper “Yes, just like that, baby,” and he thought of Sherlock’s voice in his ear whispering just that, “ _Baby_ ” and he suddenly found that he couldn’t, was nauseous at the notion of continuing even though he was hard for her and she was lovely and warm and wet.

He apologized profusely, unable to explain. At first Jeanette laughed, then she realized he was serious about stopping. She became concerned, asked him what was wrong. He apologized again. “I’m not sure if we should go on.”

“Nonsense, baby, everybody’s nervous their first time.” She kissed him, but he didn’t kiss her back. “Just relax, you’ll be fine.”

“No, Jeanette, I don’t mean just…” he made a gesture that indicated the perfection of her body, her open blouse and hiked up skirt, white bra, flash of white underwear, his own trousers undone, “...this. I mean...everything. You and me. I just don’t….I’m sorry. You’re amazing, but I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”

That was when she became frosted, furious.  

What was wrong with him? Was there somebody else? And what did he mean by stringing her along all this time? These were questions that he knew the answers to, but he could not tell her.

She was not a stupid girl. The bruise on his shoulder, his mysterious stalker; she glared at him with knowledge and silent accusation. She knew the answers, too.

John froze, waiting for her words like a bullet to the head. Would he have to beg her to spare his life? She could destroy two lives with an ugly word. _Queer._ Sherlock would be kicked out of home. And what university would take John, if they knew? How could he ever become a doctor? No one wanted to be touched by a _homosexual._ (It didn’t matter if John liked girls, too, or how much he bleated, “I’m not gay!” It all ended the same.) Who knew if it was contagious?

Their eyes met, and in that crystallized moment of knowing, they shared something. They were more intimate now than they had ever been, closer in this dark secret than if their bodies had locked together.

“Get out,” Jeanette said, buttoning up her blouse rapidly. “Get out of my house and get out of my life. I never want to see you again.” She missed a button but John kept his trap shut about it.

“You’re the most unreal girl I ever went with,” John said. It was not nearly enough. He could not express his gratitude, nor his feelings for her. They had been genuine, but also not enough.

“Get bent!” Jeanette spat at him.

He supposed he deserved it.

 

What he did not deserve, however, was the silent treatment from Sherlock, of all people. For four days Sherlock did not answer his private line. John, as a last ditch effort, called the main number for the Holmes household, ( _dreading the day that Mr. Holmes would tell him, in clipped tones, never to call this number again, followed by the click of the receiver and the dial tone_ ) and he was told, sorry, John, Sherlock was not at home.

What if.

What if by going over to Jeanette’s he had essentially rejected Sherlock. What if he had told him, inadvertently, that  he was going with her from now on. What if Jeanette was all he was meant to have now. Not that he had her anymore, either; not ever again.

There was a yawning pit in his stomach that would swallow him if he let it. He could not let it. Instead he pedalled his bike over to Sherlock’s house. Sherlock lived in one of those neighborhoods where the houses were big and white, with the lawns rolling out in front of them in thick carpets, lush and green. They had pools in the backyard, fountains or animal statues in front. On the side of the house, the Holmeses had a separate three car garage that Sherlock had taken over with his engines and experiments.

John looked to see if his car was in the driveway. It was. The motorcycle was probably in the garage.

He went around to the side of the house, guarded by neatly-clipped hedges. He found Sherlock’s window. Well, he was fairly certain it was Sherlock’s, and not Mycroft’s. He picked up a small pebble, and threw it. His aim was slightly off; it ricocheted like a stray bullet off the vinyl siding.  John concentrated on the next one, and wished with all his might that it would maybe break the window and perhaps hit Sherlock on the noggin. The pebble struck square in the middle of the glass.

“Hey!” John called up, pelting pebble number five. “I know you’re home, you jerk!” Pebble number six.

“Next one I throw’s gonna be a rock!” John called up, “Don’t think I don’t mean it!” and started searching for something suitably-sized.

While searching he noticed something even better, the tree that went up the side of the house, with sturdy enough branches. Sherlock was fond of inviting himself into John’s bedroom in a similar manner.

John had climbed plenty of trees in his childhood so this one was no real challenge. He had only twisted an ankle once, and sprained his shoulder another time. Momma said that when he’d hit the ground, his sense of fear had been knocked clean out of him.  Once he reached Sherlock’s window, he took a look inside to confirm it was the right one.

John had never seen inside Sherlock’s room before. He’d seen the inside of his car plenty, the inside of his garage, sure. He was even familiar with the inside of the treehouse that had been built for the Holmes boys when they were children (although he and Sherlock had done very adult things inside it). But just not Sherlock’s room. Sherlock did not like to be inside of his own house. He called it “suffocating.”

From his spot on the branch John could see several things: firstly, that the room was huge, secondly, that  Sherlock appeared to be hosting an indoor yard sale. Clutter and junk sprawled over every surface: a cage meant for some sort of large tropical bird, an aquarium full of laboratory glassware, and what appeared to be an attempt at building a rudimentary aircraft - or at least it was some sort of hover machine.  Lastly John could see the idiot himself, who was currently attempting to suffocate himself with his face buried in the pillows and a blanket piled just over his head.  

There was an awful racket coming from the room, vibrating through the glass window.  Sherlock had not one, but two, record players going at full volume, one of them propped up precariously on a tower of books. He couldn’t have been asleep; he never liked to sleep that much anyway, and who could sleep with all that noise? He had a lit cigarette in one hand. Clearly, if the self-asphyxiation didn’t work, he was planning to burn the house down with everybody in it.

“Sherlock!” John hollered, banging on the window. “Open up!”

Sherlock jumped up, shouting with shock. (It might have been a scream, even.) His cigarette dropped onto the carpet and John was suddenly an accessory to arson.

“John!” Sherlock said, and opened the window. “What are you doing here?”

“Hoping your neighbors won’t call the police on the burglar in the tree,” John said as he climbed in. “This is a nice neighborhood.”

“I know,” said Sherlock. “It’s horrible. It’s been thirty-seven years since the last good murder.”

It was such a Sherlock thing to say that John could have kissed him, except right now he smelled like he was homeless.

“Watch your step,” Sherlock said, as John narrowly avoided putting his foot directly onto a plate of something wet, brown, and putrefying.

“Thanks,” John said, as his other foot came down with a crunch.  

He was struck by how big Sherlock’s room was, how beautiful his house was. And it _was_ a beautiful room, that much was obvious  - despite Sherlock’s best attempts to destroy it, with the plush white carpet dotted with cigarette burns and mysterious stains, and the chandelier hanging, broken, from the high ceiling.

John had always been aware that Sherlock _had_ things, while he did not. But he had never been forced to confront it so openly. It suddenly occurred to him how much Sherlock didn’t know. He didn’t know what it was like to have his mother working double shifts and the night shift for the 25 cent differential, and how it was never to see her as a result, except in the mornings when she was skin-and-bone tired with dark circles haunting her eyes, pouring scotch into her coffee to "relax" or with an extra-large glass of wine "just for a nightcap, darling, it helps me sleep through the day."  

Sherlock didn’t know what it was like to spend Sunday mornings with his sister scouring the paper for coupons to make sure they had enough for groceries that had to last through the week, or what it was like  to eat meatloaf for weeks because hamburger was 50% off at Wegman’s because it was about to go off  and they’d bought it in bulk to freeze.

Sherlock had grown up with someone else to clean his gutters, to fix the leaks in the roof. He had never had to huddle three to a bed with his mother and sister when the heating sometimes went out in December. He had never learned how to do plumbing and shingles and plaster at the age of 14 because his family couldn’t afford to call someone to do the work, and it was his duty, anyway, as the man of the house.

Sherlock’s wardrobe was overflowing with nice clothes, new fashions, expensive real leather jackets, and he didn’t know what it was like to wear hand-me-downs, to pick through church donation boxes when he was younger and he had probably never been to a rummage sale.  

Sherlock didn’t have to worry about the future.

The entire room reeked of cigarettes and alcohol. That immediately recognizable smell of stale whiskey, layered in with the damp, rotting odor of mildew. Mold experiments grew in petri dishes covering the desk - rich cherrywood with the corners all chipped.

John viciously stamped out the cigarette glowing on the carpet, already starting to singe a little. The bedspread and high-count cotton sheets were dotted with cigarette burns as well. He was _aching_ with the knowledge of what he didn’t have, and Sherlock did.

John _hated_ him then, with his beautiful room gone to squalor, his stain-free, uncracked, unpatched, wallpapered walls shot full of arrows. On one wall the arrows were arranged in a happy face, the smile slightly crooked, mocking John with Sherlock’s casual destructiveness.

“John,” Sherlock moaned miserably from where he had fallen - back down on the bed - and John felt like punching him, suddenly, like he would very much like to punch Sherlock in his oddly beautiful face - that was also quite unfair, because why did he get to be so beautiful, and rich, and cool, and brilliant, while John was just _John_ except just then John looked at Sherlock and really saw him.

Sherlock was a terrible mess: bright, pale eyes red-rimmed, smudged with dark circles, stubble on his cheeks and chin. His normally perfect hair - of which he was so proud - was a quashed bird’s nest of curls, flat on one side and tangled on the other. His white shirt was covered with yellowed stains, and he probably hadn’t showered in days.  His skin was sallow, his fingernails stained with nicotine. Everything about him seemed yellowed. John realized that one of the record players was blasting  Mozart’s _Requiem in D Minor_ while the other was playing Johnny Cash, “ _So Doggone Lonesome_.”

“John,” Sherlock said again, reaching up for him now, tugging him back down onto the bed. He began to tug at his clothes, unbuttoning his shirt frantically, running his hands over John’s skin as if he were searching him for gunshot wounds.  

“I can’t tell...I can’t tell…” he seemed to be muttering to himself, over and over.  He sounded lost, and looked even worse. He looked up at John with a sort of empty hopelessness looming wide until John grabbed his hands by the wrists to still them and stop their wandering so that he could ask Sherlock, “What? What is it that you can’t tell? Sherlock, tell me.”

“Did you?” Sherlock asked him. “But you must have. But you didn’t. But maybe you did. Did you John?”

“What? You’re not making any sense.”

“Did you? With her.” Just saying the words made Sherlock look like John had socked him one after all: betrayed, with all the wind knocked out of him.

“No,” John told him, kissed both his hands, “No,” kissed his face, “No, I couldn’t,” cupped Sherlock’s face with both hands trembling and kissed his mouth. “Just you, only you.”

“ _John,_ ” Sherlock said, awed, and he looked as if the relief might break him, and he wrapped both arms around John so tight that John felt it was all right, to break a little.

“Don’t make me do that again,” said John, burying his face into Sherlock’s neck. He hugged back, holding on as hard as he dared. “I felt so awful. And it wasn’t right.”

“No,” Sherlock agreed. “Never again.” He kept John locked into the circle of his arms, desperately tight. John dreaded the moment when he’d have to let go again.

“Better Holmes than gardens,” John said, half to himself, and laughed.  He was hopeless, they both were - no hope for either of them, getting out of this, but John didn’t think he could try anymore, when the trying was killing him worse than the having. For now he could pretend that he would never need anything more than this, Sherlock’s arms tight around him and the heat of his skin and the warmth of his bed and the sweaty smell of him and his kisses on John’s face and throat, mouthing _John_ like otherwise he’d forget his name.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ "So Doggone Lonesome" - Johnny Cash (1956)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDfPUu6pGZE)
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> OpalGrey did a really cool thing and put Sherlock's angsty music into youtube doubler so you can hear the mess that he was listening to [here](http://youtubedoubler.com/hgLG)!


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